Consecration and Ministry in the Dominican Order

CONSECRATION AND MINISTRY IN THE DOMINICAN ORDER By WILLIAM A. HINNEBUSCH HE ORDER of Friars Preachers or Dominicans is the oldest of the apostolic orders. Its foundation marked the opening of a new period of the religious life - the era of the orders T engaged in the ministry. Monasticism in its origins did not envisage an external apostolate as its ministry. Monks relinquished the apostolic ministry to the clergy and devoted themselves to the contemplative life of the cloister. Though there were exceptions - the great irish monk-missionaries in the seventh century and St Boniface and his benedictines ill the eighth immediately come to mind - normally monks did not become evangelists. They might engage in pastoral work when people founded towns and villages in the shadow of a monastery, but an active ministry was not part of their life. The monastic picture remained unchanged for almost I,OOO years. The first significant alteration in its components occurred when the Orders of Mercy sprang from the crusades, especially the Knights Hospitallers and the Knights Templars. For the first time a ministry was grafted onto the monastic trunk. Consonant with their purpose, the new orders also developed the first beginnings of an 'international' governmental structure. The grand master controlled recruitment and assignment of personnel. The day of the apostolic orders, however had not yet dawned. The purpose of the orders of mercy was too specialized to inaugurate a decisive trend in monasticism. The dominican order was a new shoot growing from the monastic trunk. (We do not include the Friars Minor at this point, because that order sprang in its original inspiration from the lay apostolic movements of the i Ith and I2th centuries.) The dominicans ~eunite6 two ancient elements of the early Church - consecration and ministry. The two are clearly stated for the first time when Peter called for the selection of deacons: GONSECRATION IN THE DOMINICAN ORDER 59 It is not fitting that we should neglect the word of God to serve the tables. Therefore, brethren, select from among you seven men of attested character.., but as for ourselves, we will give our whole attention to the prayer and to the ministry of the word. 1 This text, in the understanding of the monks, describes the life lived by the apostles and believers in Jerusalem and established by them in the first christian centres. It included both prayer and ministry. Monasticism devoted itself to the first of these elements. The monk consecrated himself to a life of contemplative prayer. Tradition as- signs no other end to the life of the monk than 'to seek God' or 'to live for God alone', an ideal to be attained by a life of prayer and penaace. The first and fundamental manifestation of such a voca- tion is a real separation from the world. Though the monk as monk did not devote himself to the directly apostolic ministry, yet he considered his prayer, contemplation and example mighty sources radiating for the upbuilding of the Body of Christ - a true ministry. From its origins, however, the dominican order united consecration and ministry. It speaks of its mission as that of a contemplative apostolic order. This terminology was formulated by Thomas Aqui- nas in his Summa Theologiae; his thinking on the subject had been matured under the attack on the mendicant order during the 1250'S by William of St Amour, professor at Paris, who claimed that it was sinful for religious to teach, preach and hear confessions. Rather, their life was that of the cloister, separated from the world. Thomas, Bonaventure and other friars sprang to the defence. The formula- tion of Thomas when speaking of the new orders - 'to contemplate and to give to others the fruit of contemplation' - became classical, and his own order accepted it as an exact statement of its purpose. The phrase of Thomas is a lineal descendant of the statement of the order's aim incorporated by Dominic in I22o into the text of the earliest dominican Constitutions: 'Our Order was founded for preaching and :the salvation of souls'. Since the days of Dominic and Thomas, dominicans have used both formulations to describe their life - it is contemplative and apostolic. The Dominican is a contemplative apostle. The two elements of his life are contemplation and preaching. In the terminology here adopted, 'consecration' is equi- valent to the religious life man entered into by vow: 'apostolic', to ministry. For a short time the order interpreted 'preaching' strictly: t Acts6, 3-4- 60 CONSECRATION AND MINISTRY preaching by word of mouth was meant. Dominic himself opened the way for teaching the word from the master's chair, when he sent friars to the University of Paris to study. The immediate purposewas to train teachers for dominican schools, but no one might teach without a degree; and no degree could be earnedin the medieval university without m-course teaching. When the opportunities arose in 1228 and 1229, therefore, the order had no hesitation about accepting chairs of theology at the University. From the beginning dominicans also regarded foreign missions as an integral part of the order's ministry. During Dominic's lifetime, missions were opened among moslems, pagans, and schismatics on the northern and eastern frontiers of Europe, in Africa, and in the near and far east. From 1221, the mission provinces of Greece and the Holy Land were established. In the sixteenth century, the order founded ten provinces in Amer- ica and established the Province of the Holy Rosary, recruited in Spain but established in Asia, with the Philippine Islands as a base. It has retained its missionary character to the present day. During the decade after Dominic's death, the order's ministry became almost as diversified as today, barring later developments of the apostolate, such as the use of the communications media. Any means of disseminating truth was looked upon as a legitimate extension of the dominican mission. By the end of Gregory IX's pontificate (i 241), dominicans were serving as confessors and spiri- tual directors, teaching, acting as advisers, messengers, legates and arbitrators for ecclesiastical and civil officials. Only parishes, the episcopate and the inquisition were considered by St Dominic and the constitutions to be foreign to the order's mission, because they impeded the preaching of the word. Pressure from Gregory forced acceptance of the last two functions. In modern times, the order first tolerated, then in the twentieth century, under the pressure of modern conditions, approved dominican staffing of parishes. In the foundation of the order, the ministry came first. Dominic's determination to found an order and the kind of order he established resulted from his experience and observation during ten years of missionary work among the cathar heretics of southern France (12o5-1215). He saw how badly the Church needed preachers trained in scripture and theology. To counteract the ignorance and worldliness of the clergy and the pleasure-loving tendencies found in rich are~ like Provence and Italy,it needed preachers who could give an example of a holy life based on apostolic poverty. Expe- rience had also taught Dominic that only a religiousorder organized CONSECRATION IN THE DOMINICAN ORDER 61 for the purpose could fill these needs. In southern France papal legates, cistercian abbots, and theologians from the University of Paris failed to provide the sustained effort that only an order of preachers professing poverty could provide. Dominic, therefore, founded the order in 1215 for the preaching ministry. At the head of its Constitutions stands the statement: 'Our Order was founded from the beginning for preaching and the salvation of souls. Our study ought to tend principally, ardently, and with the utmost endeavour to the end that we might be helpful to the souls of our neighbours'. Pope Honorius III (who confirmed Dominic's foundation in 12 i6) developed this key-idea at greater length: God, who continually pours new life into his Church, wishes to bring our times into harmony with the apostolic Church and spread the christian faith. So he has inspired you to embrace a life of poverty and discipline and thus to devote yourselves to preaching the word of God and proclaiming the name of our Lord Jesus Christ throughout the world. In pursuit of this purpose, the Constitutions ~(in a section directly inspired if not written by St Dominic) urged the brethren 'to live sincerely and devoutly like men who seek to gain their own and others' salvation - gospel-men who follow the Saviour, speaking always to God or about God among themselves and with others'. The founder created a new kind of religious Institute that joined ministry to consecration as an essential and permanent part of its religious life. He united the work of the evangelist to the contemplative life of traditional monasticism. Tension was inherent in such a marriage of apparent opposites. He obliged his sons to the monastic regime, yet demanded that they be a body of trained, mobile preachers, quick to respond to the needs of the Church in any locality. He had cogent reasons for what he did. Men of the gospel proclaim the word of God, a heavenly reality that cannot be fath- omed by a purely intellectual process; it must be the fruit of 'experience', of personal savouring that when it matures becomes love. Only when God's word has been pondered in the contemplative prayer of the consecrated religious can it be proclaimed effectively. Dominic wanted his children to be men of prayer who had expe- rienced the word: he required them to become contemplatives as a condition of becoming apostles.

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